We’ve got a short read for you this month, but a relevant one. As the latest VA scandal unfolds politicians are stumbling over each other to decry the way we treat our vets, but we were recently reminded that the United States has never given our veterans the respect they deserve when they got home. When the Bonus Army marched on Washington in 1932 to demand the money they were promised after the war, our United States Government met them with tear gas, tanks, and guns. No money. General Smedley Butler addressed the crowd that day, and years later went on to write a classic book that explains why the shabby way the vets were treated shouldn’t have been any surprise. This month we bring you the General’s book, a re-enactment of his speech on the subject, and actual footage from his speech to the Bonus Army.
“War Is A Racket” by General Smedley Butler
(Synopsis from WikiPedia; click the book cover to go to the Powells.com site)
‘War Is a Racket’ is the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two time Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler. In them, Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests commercially benefit (war profiteering) from warfare.
After his retirement from the Marine Corps, Butler made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech “War is a Racket”. The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a small book with the same title that was published in 1935 by Round Table Press, Inc., of New York. The booklet was also condensed in Reader’s Digest as a book supplement which helped popularize his message. In an introduction to the Reader’s Digestversion, Lowell Thomas, the “as told to” author of Butler’s oral autobiographical adventures, praised Butler’s “moral as well as physical courage”.
General Butler’s full “War Is A Racket” speech delivered by a re-enactor
The real General Butler addresses the marchers of the Bonus Army
